Sol-1 diverged in 1969 with the survival of Mary Jo Kopechne during the car accident with Teddy Kennedy. Without her death, Teddy Kennedy's reputation was relatively untarnished, and he was able to defeat Jimmy Carter in the Democratic Party primary and Ronald Reagan in the 1976 US Presidential Election. With his election, Teddy Kennedy prioritized investment in economic justice, social justice, and scientific research.

In particular, Teddy desired to build upon the dreams of JFK and supported the expansion of NASA and pushed through NASA's plan for the orbital solar power array in 1978, using the OPEC oil embargo as a justification and to drum up support for American energy independence. With the support of the President, NASA proposed an ambitious plan that required 1% of the US GDP, which Teddy was able to push through Congress through supporting modest increases in military and domestic spending.

In 1978, Teddy forced the Shah of Iran to resign through convincing Congress to support the secular movements and pushed through a UN resolution for a 5 year caretaker government, under the supervision of the UN, that would prepare Iran for democratic rule. With the support of the USA and the UN, the secular revolutionaries were able to limit the effectiveness of the religious extremists and, with the death of Khomeini in 1979 due to food poisoning, the religious extremists spent more time fighting themselves than the secularists.

Teddy Kennedy easily won reelection in 1980 due to his personal popularity and his foreign policy accomplishments. In exchange for a 10% share in the orbital solar array, the USSR agreed to a large reduction in nuclear weapons in 1979, with a maximum of 500 weapons for each of the USA and USSR.

In 1984, John Glenn, a longtime ally of Teddy, became president of the USA, easily winning against George H.W. Bush. Famous for his work as an astronaut and as a Senator of Colorado, he continued the construction of the orbital solar array. In 1988, with the successful completion of the first SPS and the generation of 10 GW of electricity, the promise of American energy independence started to be fulfilled, allowing John Glenn to easily defeat Bob Dole after he defeated George H.W. Bush for the nomination.

With the collapse of the USSR during his second term and the growing production of energy from the orbital array, John Glenn would have easily gone down in history as one of the best presidents in US history. In addition, he sold shares of the 20% of the orbital array to US allies, and negotiated two major successful peace deals. The first was the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, with the threat of a US embargo similar to the embargo against South Africa, the Israelis agreed to a negotiated settlement in 1991. The second was the Chinese-Taiwan conflict, where the Chinese agreed to recognize Taiwan in exchange for a 10% share of the orbital array in 1992.

In 1992, Jerry Brown defeated Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot in the Presidential election. With the growing success of the orbital array and the end of the Cold War, Brown pushed for a reduction in military spending and an increase in social spending. Without the deficits from the Reagan tax cuts in OTL, Brown was capable of pushing massive cuts in military spending and massive increases in domestic spending.

In 2000, John McCain became the first Republican in a quarter century to win the presidency. With the discovery of a Saudi funded plot to attack the USA in retaliation for the USA not supporting the Saudis against the Iraqis in 1991, McCain organized the invasion of Saudi Arabia. While the Saudis had been victorious, the war had wrecked the economies of the Gulf (with the exception of Iran, which benefitted from the oil disruptions). Within a year, Saudi Arabia was divided amongst its neighbors, and the USA had not sent in a single soldier, using its air power to support the invasion.

In addition to the dissolution of Saudi Arabia, McCain oversaw the modernization of the US military and the continued support for NASA. He oversaw the successful manned mission to Mars in 2003 and then a permanent station in 2006. With the ice mines on Demos and Phobos in 2006, regular transfers of material from Mars orbit to Earth started arriving in 2007. By 2008, space was profitable, and the US and its allies owned 80% of space.

After McCain, the next president was Senator Hillary Clinton in 2008 and then Senator Barack Obama in 2016. They continued the successes of previous administrations's and, by 2020, governed a prosperous and progressive America with commercial enterprises that stretched to the Main Belt. Without a doubt, space is considered good business.

A Q7 timeline, Centrum and Homeline consider Sol-1 problematic because the majority of physics research is in space. Laboratories on the Moon and Mars due most of the physics research, and they fear that the America of Sol-1 may stumble on paratronic travel without them being the wiser. Reports of research into a jump drive causes them additional worries, as both politics know that FTL is impossible.